Thursday, February 28, 2013

Symptoms of End-Stage Renal Failure in Clinic


End-stage Renal Failure happens as one’s kidneys stop working let the patients can’t live without dialysis or kidney transplant. The damage is permanent and can’t be fixed in most of the cases. By knowing the various symptoms of the disease, one can tell if he or she develops the fatal disease.
The symptoms of End-stage Renal Failure are as followings:

1. Gastrointestinal symptoms

Earliest symptoms occur in gastrointestinal tract. Mainly are:

² Poor appetite

² Nausea

² Vomiting

² Gastrointestinal inflammation

² Ulcer

² Gastrointestinal bleeding

2. Cardiovascular symptoms

² Atherosclerosis

² High blood pressure

² Pericarditis

² Heart failure

3. Hematologic symptoms

² Anemia

² Bleeding diathesis

² Leukocyte disorder

4. Respiratory symptoms

² Hyperventilation

² Uraemic pneumonitis

² Uraemic pleuritis

5. Neural and muscular symptoms

² Central nervous-- uremia encephalopathy

² Peripheral nerves—restless leg syndrome

² Myopathy--myasthenia, amyotrophia, myositis

6. Cutaneous symptoms

² Skin itch

² Chromatosis

² Urea cream

² metastatic calcification

7. Skeletal system symptoms

² Renal bone disease

² High-bone turnover disease

² Low-bone turnover disease

² Mixed bone disease

² Dialysis bone disease (β2microglobulin,deposition)

8. Endocrinologic and metabolic disorder

² EPO increase

² PTH increase

² Sexual disorder

² hypothyroidism

9. Infection—One of the leading causes of deaths in patients with CRF

² Immune disorder and white blood cell dysfunction

10. Metabolic acidosis—one of the most common causes of deaths in patients with uraemia
Major causes of metabolic acidosis: GRF declines, retention of acid metabolites appears; secretory function of hydrogen in renal tubulus has been damaged; secretory ability of hydrogen in renal tubulus declines

11. Imbalance of water and electrolytes

² Dehydration or excessive water

² Sodium loss or retention of sodium

² Hyperkalemia / hypokalemia

² Hypocalcemia / hypercalcemia

² hyperphosphatemia

² Hypermagnesemia

² Aluminum accumulation

Among all those symptoms, some of them will occur in the early stage while some in the advanced stage. End-stage Renal Failure can be avoided as long as you detect them early.

Dietary Treatments to Fight against Renal Failure


Diet acts an important part in human life. It is especially vital to those who suffered from some kind of disease, say, kidney diseases or Renal Failure. A kidney-friendly diet benefits the patients’ condition and therapeutic effects, while a bad one contributes to the aggravation and progression of the disease. If you have some kind of kidney disease or Renal Failure, this is the right article for you and your cared ones.

What about the protein?

Protein is good, but only for those with healthy physical condition. If you develop Renal Failure or kidney disease, you’d better take care of your protein consumption in daily life. High quality protein is recommended. To be more specific, 0.6g/kg of body weight in every single day is the upper limit. Vegetable protein is not always better than animal protein, high quality protein food is the best choice, such as fish, lean.

How do I take trace elements?

Those trace elements include: sodium (Na), potassium, phosphorus, calcium and so on.
Patients with Renal Failure have electrolytes disorders, as a result of chaotic electrolytes, various complications and annoying symptoms are triggered. That’s why Renal Failure patients shouldn’t grab what they want because the already serious condition.

Here’s an approximate list containing the common foods they should avoid:

High levels of sodium foods: salt, frozen meats (all types), corned beef, pepperoni, pizza, sausage, Chinese Food, fast foods, cheese, pickles, soy sauce, potato chips, canned soups (all types).
Foods high in potassium: bananas, milk, prunes, orange juice, tomato juice, tomato sauce, all types of beans, nuts, chocolate etc.

Foods high in phosphorus: milk (any kind), chocolate, nuts, liver, cheese, black eye peas, yogurt, to name a few.

Modify your eating habits if you have a wrong one, while carry out your right one to boost kidney function and take well-controlled illness condition. I won’t list all the trace elements foods here, ask our online experts or talk with your doctor about this is the best way to help you stay away from any other possible troubles or life-threatening consequences.

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Know about Renal Atrophy


Renal Atrophy is a medical condition describing the shrinkage of one or both kidneys. Renal Atrophy happens when there is a poor blood circulation or loss of nephrons. It is associated with the most serious consequences called Renal Failure.

What cause atrophic kidneys?

As the Renal Atrophy occurs, you need to think about if it is caused by congenital renal dysplasia, kidney disease or urinary tract obstruction. Ischemia, reflux nephropathy and acute pyelonephritis etc. could also impair the kidney functions in some way.

What is the relation between Renal Atrophy and Renal Failure?

Although Renal Failure and Renal Atrophy is not the same thing, Renal Atrophy may lead to Renal Failure somehow.

Renal Failure refers to the abnormal function of kidneys, which results in wastes accumulating in human body and cannot be discharged. Plenty of causes can trigger abnormal function, some of the causes lead to Acute Renal Failure while some cause Chronic Renal Failure.

Renal Atrophy is an anatomical term, which means the size-reduction of your kidneys. When Renal Atrophy occurs, glomerulus and renal tubulus has been damaged partially or completely.

How to diagnose and treat Renal Atrophy?

Before approaching a reasonable treatment plan, we need to find out the underlying causes of your Renal Atrophy. CT scan and MRI can surely help diagnose the condition. What kind of treatment we choose mainly depends on the extent of your kidney damages. Dialysis would be involved if one is suffering from Renal Failure.

Our approach for Renal Atrophy

We adopt Micro-Chinese Medicine Osmotherapy to treat the Renal Atrophy from progressing to a worse condition. Through a great amount of clinical practices, Micro-Chinese Medicine Osmotherapy is proved to be effective on remedying Renal Atrophy.

It can repair damaged intrinsic cells along with recover renal tissues as well as restore impaired kidney functions. In addition, Immunotherapy also aids in the treatment of Renal Atrophy and made a great progress in remedying the disease.

What you can do to prevent your kidneys from being atrophy?

You must make certain changes in your life-style including:

Avoid too much alcohol or soda pop

Drink appropriate amount of water instead of too much on a daily basis.

Excessive consumption of tobacco should be cut down for your own good, because tobacco would impair your kidneys and lead to kidney diseases.

Why Swelling Occur in Patients with Renal Failure


In most cases, swelling is caused by excess fluid accumulating in your body. It can be widespread or localized. The root cause is that your kidneys don’t work well or completely lose their function. Swelling in legs, ankles, face, feet or hands are the most common areas.

There are two major reasons causing swelling--heavy loss of protein in your urine and damaged renal function.

Heavy loss of protein in your urine: loss of protein over 3.0 grams per day.

When Renal Failure occurs, your kidney function becomes abnormal. With the aid of protein, blood volume can be maintained. When Renal Failure happens, the fluid in your blood vessel reduced, under such condition, the kidneys would signal that there is short of blood volume which would result in the fluid get into interstitial spaces. Consequently, swelling appears.

The key point to treat swelling is to reduce the loss of protein. In addition, low salt diet should be recommended for patients with Renal Failure.

Damaged renal function

Kidneys are unable to excrete sodium into your urine and cause swelling. Swelling in this situation can be triggered by taking excessive sodium from your daily diets. Patients with Renal Failure may require dialysis in the serious cases. Because the kidneys is unable to regulate electrolytes balance, that’s why we adopt dialysis. Dialysis is an artificial kidney; it can function as your kidneys when the real fail to work. Patients with Renal Failure whose renal function declines to less than 5%-10% require dialysis.

Patients with Renal Failure should limit the water intake, because excess water will aggravate the severity of your swelling. In addition, the kidney function has already been impaired, excessive water imposes heavy burden to your kidneys, making the condition much more serious whereas.
When Renal Failure occurs, there are so many things need to pay attention. To keep away from various complications, healthy lifestyle should be maintained. Only in this way won’t the condition get worsen.

Monday, February 25, 2013

Common Symptoms When Uronephrosis Occurs after Renal Failure


As one of the common symptoms of Renal Failure, people with uronephrosis often feel pain, difficult urination and will affect renal function sooner or later. That’s why we suggest early detection and treatment should be taken, so as not to delay the condition. Because the later you take treatment, the more severe damage it will made.

What exactly is uronephrosis?

Urinary obstruction leads to pyelectasis and caliectasis, which results in the retention of urine, this is called uronephrosis.

Symtoms caused by uronephrosis are:

1. Severe pain.

People with uronephrosis usually accompanies with severe pain, normally in back and lower abdomen.

The kidneys have been obstructed causing severe wrench, bursting or dull pain. For example, urinary tract calculi can cause uronephrosis with a severe renal colic while no symptom appears as uronephrosis caused by urologic neoplasms.

2. Frequent urge to urinate and urgent urination

People with Renal Failure can develop urinary tract infections. Quite a lot of people have been detected of uronephrosis when they go for a urinary tract check.

3. Uronephrosis can be detected when taking exam of uronephrosis

Part of the symptoms would appear only when exam of uronephrosis is taken. Uronephrosis is usually caused by urinary obstruction with no obvious signs or symptoms, which is related to the cause and its forming speed. Generally speaking, uronephrosis is often detected being done for another condition.

If the uronephrosis lasts for a long time, enlargement would appear, along with decreased renal function. As the condition progresses, renal failure will develop eventually.

Although uronephrosis sometimes cause no or mild symptoms, it can impact greatly to your kidneys and if left untreated, it would lead to renal failure in the long run.

Life Expectancy of Patients with Chronic Renal Failure


Chronic Renal Failure describes a serious and progressive medical condition affecting your kidneys, and it can be caused by diabetes or hypertension. Chronic Renal Failure usually causes no signs or symptoms and is often detected being done for another condition. Patients who are suffering from Chronic Renal Failure means the conditions have been developed to the end stage of kidney disease. Well, in this case, how long should the patients expect their own life expectancy?

According to the renal pathological research, before the condition develops to uremia and CFR (glomerular filtration rate) higher than 5%, you still have a chance to get better.

As for the exact life expectancy, it depends on specific situations. Hypothetically, a patient with Chronic Renal Failure is detected in early stage with a relative low creatinine. He may have a good chance to recover. In simple and popular language, in early stage of Chronic Renal Failure, the condition can get better through appropriate treatment while the inadequate treatment would lead to uremia which can be harder to remedy. Taking what kind of treatment depends on not only your own condition but also your physical condition. Moreover, keeping your body warm and your mind peaceful, taking a healthy diet also can help you live a relative good quality of life. Building confidence is one of the vital factors which can help you slow down the progression, meanwhile, speed up the process of recovery.

When the condition has been in an on-going down-trend and finally developed to end-stage renal failure (ESRF), we should take effective therapy right now, furthermore, repair kidney function as much as possible. There are chances to bring the condition under control and improve patients’ life quality at the same time.

Sunday, February 24, 2013

High Blood Pressure and Chronic Kidney Failure


Uncontrolled or poorly controlled high blood pressure is the major culprit accounting for the aggravated kidney function. Chronic Kidney Failure may develop as the result of persistent hypertension. How is elevated blood pressure and chronic renal failure or other kidney diseases related? Read on to find your answers.

It is pretty clear that high blood pressure not just is the result of chronic kidney disease, but also the vital influencing factor which takes part in the progression of illness condition. Long-standing as well as poorly controlled hypertension is recognized as an index of poor prognosis of various kidney diseases. Elevated blood pressure threatens Chronic Kidney Failure patients’ life security.
High blood pressure would probably develop in vast majority of ESRD or Chronic Kidney Failure.
Why that would happen and how is these two things associated? Hypertension could lead to renal damages due to vasoconstriction, small blood vessel sclerosis and arteriosclerosis. Furthermore, hyperperfusion, high pressure and high hyperfiltration occur as a result of local elevated blood pressure of glomeruli. What are the results? All those would cause endothelial cells damages of glomerular capillaries, and kidney fibrosis is triggered consequently. Nephrons are damaged, kidney function is injured and kidney function decreases progressively with time. RAAS also takes part in the aggravated illness condition.

RAAS is short for renin-angiotensin aldosterone system, which plays an important role in regulating blood pressure and balancing electrolytes. More precisely, RAAS works for regulating potassium, sodium, blood volume and blood pressure. Therefore, people with progressive Chronic Kidney Failure, especially those with high blood pressure are easily to suffer from RASS dysfunction.

Diagnostic Tests for Renal Failure


The tests for Renal Failure in Kidney Disease Hospital mainly consist of two parts: the standard tests and our special tests. The routine tests or called standard tests, which can be done almost in any general hospitals. However, our featured tests or called special tests do make us different from other hospitals.

Our special tests can help us pinpoint the exact deposited location of immune complex and also the severity degree. By doing these tests, where are the damages and how serious the damages are can be told. By doing the tests, the clinical prescription and treatment can be instructed, which lays a solid foundation for a possible best outcomes.

Routine tests of Renal Failure

Blood tests

Serum creatinine: increased serum creatinine is usually an early signal of impaired kidney function and reports some kind of kidney disease.

BUN (blood urea nitrogen): often works as the index of GFR and the standard to tell if the dialysis is adequate or not.

Blood electrolyte tests: calcium, potassium, phosphorus etc. should be measured to see if electrolyte imbalances exist in your body, and of course, take necessary treatments according to the lab result.
CBC (Complete blood count): CBC denotes one’s situation of blood red cells, white blood cells and platelets.

Routine urine tests

Urinalysis: through examine the sediment in your urine; the renal damage severity can be estimated accordingly.

24-hour urine collection: helps monitor fluid balance

Imaging tests include abdominal ultrasound, CT scan, X-ray, MRI (magnetic resonance imaging)
Renal biopsy: analyzing a small section of kidney tissue could reveal the severity of kidney damages.

Our Special Tests—Eight Tests for Renal Injury

Total protein in urine: there are many protein ingredients in total protein in urine, concentration and component vary from time to time under normal or pathologic condition.

MAU (Micro-albumin in urine): MAU refers to micro-albumin in your urine, which is more sensitive than total protein, and can be used to monitor the very early damages of kidneys
Urine IgG (immunoglobulin G): if IgG deposit is closely associated with the damage of basilar membrane

Urine α1 microglobulin: early signal of renal tubulus damages

Osmotic pressure: it mainly reflects the function of concentration and dilution in renal tubulus
Urine total creatinine

GGT (gamma-glutamyl transpeptidase)

NAG (Amino-glucosidase): NAG is sensitive to the activity damages of renal tubulus

Saturday, February 23, 2013

Is It Okay for Renal Failure Patients Have Coffee


Coffee is popular in most of the regions around the world. It becomes an indispensable part in people’s lives. Someone loves it while others against it. However, it is believed that coffee or caffeine is the major culprit of sleeplessness, high blood pressure, diabetes or even Renal Failure in recent years.

Is it true? Can too much coffee impair one’s kidneys and trigger the Renal Failure?

Renal Failure describes a serious medical condition in which one’s kidneys fail to eliminate toxins or other stuffs from one’s blood and body.

Coffee is loaded with potassium, which exactly is strictly limited in people with the disease. What we fear most is that the high level of potassium coming from coffee triggers serious consequences.
Coffee is composed with caffeine, which is excreted by liver or kidneys. If one has already suffered from the diseaseor impaired kidneys, then drinking coffee will pose a heavier burden to his impaired kidneys. Undoubtedly, it has no good to the kidneys and illness condition. Besides,
caffeine contributes to obesity and increases in cholesterol levels or proteinuria.

This rule doesn’t apply to all the people. To those who have a good physical condition and are born with strong kidneys, the risk of developing kidney diseases depends. In other word, they develop a lower risk of suffering from Renal Failure. While for those with weak kidneys or in poor physical condition, coffee or caffeine definitely won’t help.

In conclusion, no evidence reveals that there’s some certain connection between Renal Failure and coffee. So any statements declaring the absolute ban or agreement towards Renal Failure or coffee are not right and should be doubted.

One thing you need to know is, different kidney diseases have different rules towards coffee-drinking. For example, people with PKD (polycystic kidney disease) are still allowed to consume coffee but with a limited amount. While for kidney stones, there are two opposite opinions, one opinion is in favor of coffee is able to lower the risk of developing a kidney stone, while the other think that coffee should be blamed for kidney stones.

Complications of Hemodialysis May Lead to Death


Hemodialysis is a life-saving move for people with ESRD (also known as End-stage Renal Failure). They have to be hooked up to the dialysis machine three or two times a week. Hence their lives are closely attached to this artificial kidney. That’s why knowing some complications matters. If you have any of these discomforts or complications, do take measures as early as possible since they can be fatal.

Disequilibrium syndrome

It is commonly seen in Acute Renal Failure patients or people with Chronic Renal Failure who are at their very first hemodialysis or experience excessive duration. The disequilibrium syndrome usually occurs after the dialysis just finished. Symptoms are headache, uneasy, vomiting, nausea, blurred vision, muscle cramp in mild ones; while in more serious cases, patients may experience elevated blood pressure, limb tremors and fail to keep balance. Seizure, mental disorder or even coma develops in most severe cases.

First dialysis syndrome

The syndrome develops shortly after hemodialysis is performed. The reaction often occurs in 5 to 30 minutes. Chest pain, backache, itchy skin may appear. Difficult breathing, body burning sensation, decreased blood pressure and sharp pain in chest and abdomen develop in serious condition.

Fever

Shiver, high fever, nausea and vomiting etc. would occur after 1-2 hours of hemodialysis.

Low blood pressure

The incidence rate of low blood pressure is 25-40% in patients on dialysis. Other symptoms accompanying with low blood pressure are chest distress, chills, pale face and vomiting etc. Short-term memory loss, twitches occurs in serious cases. Angina pectoris may attack when the patients have coronary heart disease.

High blood pressure

Elevated blood pressure doubles the risks of developing cerebral hemorrhage and cerebral infarction for patients on dialysis. Therefore, it should be controlled well and closely monitored.

Heart failure

Heart failure appears commonly in the course of dialysis. Palpitation, shortness of breath and pink bubble-like sputum attacks in serious cases.

Other serious complications include cardiac arrhythmia, angor pectoris or acute myocardial infarct etc. The occurrence of any kind of complications coming from hemodialysis can’t be a good sign. If left untreated, it may lead to death. Juts for your information, in most cases, it is the complications which kill Renal Failure patients instead of the disease itself.

Friday, February 22, 2013

Featured Lab Tests Special for Diabetes and Kidney Disease


Name of the disease: Diabetes and Kidney Disease

Items of lab tests:

1. Renal damage series

2. Uremia series

Routine lab tests include:

1. Biochemical test

2. Blood coagulation detection

3. Urinalysis

4. Blood cell analysis

5. Virus series

Special tests:

1. Immunization tests

2. General tests

The purpose of immunization tests (Renal damage series):

To figure out whether injury exists in the kidneys

To decide the specific injury site is in glomeruli or renal tubulus

To measure the injury severity, and then give instructions to the clinical prescription

To decide the patients’ drug sensitivity in order to guide the clinical treatments

Among all these tests, the tests for total urine protein, MALB (microalbminurine) and urine IgG aim at measuring the injury severity of glomeruli and the drug sensitivity.

Urine α1-MALB is used to see if the reabsorption of renal tubulus is damaged and how serious the damage is.

Urinary enzyme GGT and Urinary enzyme NAG is the criteria of deciding whether the inflammatory injury occurs in renal tubulus, besides, by detecting the GGT and NAG, the injury severity can be told.

In order to estimate the injury severity of reabsorption in distal nephrons, we will detect urine osmolality (UOsm).

The purpose of immunization tests (Uremia series):

To figure out the accumulation of toxins in the body

Give suggestions for the clinical treatment, such as choose a right approach to clear the toxins out. Those tests include: urea nitrogen, creatinine, urea acid, β2-MALB, Cystatin C, RBP (retinol-binding protein), HCY(homocysteine) and PTH (parathyroid hormone).

Among all those substances, urea nitrogen, creatinine and urea acid are small molecules, while medium molecule toxic substances includeβ2-MALB and Cystatin C. Those two substances take part in amyloidosis. Other toxic matters such as PTH would result in bone disease, and detection of RBP contributes to the early detection and prognosis.

Why those lab tests matter?

Five years after the diagnosis of Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus (D1M) and by the time of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (D2M) diagnosis, possible kidney diseases may occur accordingly. That’s why immunization tests are indispensable for the diagnosis and further treatment. Kidney Disease Hospital (SKDH) has carried out Cystatin C lab test as a diagnostic criterion for Diabetes since 2007. All those lab tests contribute to the correct diagnosis and further treatments.

Urinalysis

Blood cell analysis

Virus series

Special tests:

Immunization tests

General tests

The purpose of immunization tests (Renal damage series):

To figure out whether injury exists in the kidneys

To decide the specific injury site is in glomeruli or renal tubulus

To measure the injury severity, and then give instructions to the clinical prescription

To decide the patients’ drug sensitivity in order to guide the clinical treatments

Among all these tests, the tests for total urine protein, MALB (microalbminurine) and urine IgG aim at measuring the injury severity of glomeruli and the drug sensitivity.

Urine α1-MALB is used to see if the reabsorption of renal tubulus is damaged and how serious the damage is.

Urinary enzyme GGT and Urinary enzyme NAG is the criteria of deciding whether the inflammatory injury occurs in renal tubulus, besides, by detecting the GGT and NAG, the injury severity can be told.

In order to estimate the injury severity of reabsorption in distal nephrons, we will detect urine osmolality (UOsm).

The purpose of immunization tests (Uremia series):

To figure out the accumulation of toxins in the body

Give suggestions for the clinical treatment, such as choose a right approach to clear the toxins out. Those tests include: urea nitrogen, creatinine, urea acid, β2-MALB, Cystatin C, RBP (retinol-binding protein), HCY(homocysteine) and PTH (parathyroid hormone).

Among all those substances, urea nitrogen, creatinine and urea acid are small molecules, while medium molecule toxic substances includeβ2-MALB and Cystatin C. Those two substances take part in amyloidosis. Other toxic matters such as PTH would result in bone disease, and detection of RBP contributes to the early detection and prognosis.

Why those lab tests matter?

Five years after the diagnosis of Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus (D1M) and by the time of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (D2M) diagnosis, possible kidney diseases may occur accordingly. That’s why immunization tests are indispensable for the diagnosis and further treatment. Kidney Disease Hospital (SKDH) has carried out Cystatin C lab test as a diagnostic criterion for Diabetes since 2007. All those lab tests contribute to the correct diagnosis and further treatments.

Diet Suggestions for Renal Failure Patients with High Creatinine


Renal Failure has become an increasingly worrisome health problem around the world. Patients with Renal Failure usually accompany with a high creatinine level. Under this circumstance, their daily dietary habits impact greatly on their renal function. So what should they eat in daily lives to prevent the condition from progressing?

▪ First principle is low-salt food.

Cut down your salt intake. Normally speaking, those with high blood pressure or swelling should strictly restrict their sodium intake so as not to put extra pressure on their renal function. For example, white cheese is a safer bet than cheddar.

▪ Second one is control the amount of protein consumption.

People suffering from Renal Failure don’t have the luxury to indulge themselves. Their kidneys struggle to filter fluids even on their best days. Overload of salt put more stress on kidneys, consequently, the condition get worse.

▪ People with Renal Failure should take foods rich in vitamin A, B2 and C.

If they only accompany with high creatinine but no swelling or oliguria, low-salt diet should be insisted. If serious swelling, high blood pressure or even heart failure appears, low salt intake should be restricted.

▪ Cut down on your intake of alcohol and quit smoking.

Excessive consumption of alcohol can cause severe damage to the kidneys and make one prone to Renal Failure. More alcohol impairs more of your blood vessels, and boost renal hardening. That’s why whatever you have a normal function, or with a high creatinine, quit smoking or decrease your alcohol consumption is good for you.

Thursday, February 21, 2013

Diagnostic Criteria of Chronic Renal Failure in Children


Chronic Renal Failure poses a great damage and greatly affects the quality of life in children. By knowing the diagnostic criteria, you can have a better understanding of the disease.

Age range: 0-14 years old.

Creatinine clearance rate (CCr) ﹤50 ml / (min·1.73 m)

Course of disease is in line with the following conditions:

Those with confirmed acute nephritis history more than 1 year; those with hidden onset more than 1/2 years; or those patients with renal failure who are caused by chronic pathological changes or genetic renal diseases.

Patients with confirmed renal history over one year or hidden onset more than 6 months or course of diseases less than 6 months, but the renal pathological test and clinical test (blood, routine urine test, calcium and phosphorus metabolism and B ultrasonic for kidneys etc.) manifest the renal diseases has enter into a chronic phase, features are same as CRF.

Renal function condition: blood urea nitrogen (BUN)﹥8.57 mmol / L( increase with SCr parallelly); serum creatinine rate (SCr) ﹥176.8 pmoL/L.

Have sign or symptoms such as renal anemia, slow-growing, hypertension and uremia etc.
According to a complete data shows that gender ratio is 1.49/1; average age of onset is 8.2 years old; average course before diagnosis is 2.5 years. Main primary diseases are chronic nephritis and renal syndromes which account for 52.7%; congenital or hereditary diseases account for about 1/4, which mainly are renal dysplasia and renal cystic disease. Primary clinical features at time of diagnosis are anemia, gastrointestinal reaction, edema, hypertension and growth retardation etc.

Treatment

Relieve the uremia symptoms and protect remaining renal function.

Place emphasis on nutrition in children with CRF. Do our best to provide enough caloric supply for those children. Daily caloric supply should not less than normal same-age children. Low-protein diet (LPD) becomes the foundation among nutrition issues. Suggestion: LPD begins when GRF﹤60ml / (min·1.73 m2); ﹤1 years old, 1.8g / (kg·d); 1-2 years old, 1.0-1.5g / (kg·d); 2-16 years old, 1 g / (kg·d); serious cases 0.6-1.0 g / (kg·d).

Add essential amino-acid, ketonic acid, water soluble vitamin (VitB, VitC and folic acid) on the basis of LPD.

We suggest that protein intake should be restrained when GRF down to 50% or even less.
Patients with GFR﹤5ml/min·1.73 m, supply 0.6g/kg·d protein including high quality protein0.35 g/kg·d.

Patients with no dialysis and GFR﹤25ml/min·1.73 m, if they are lack of caloric, provide 0.75 g/kg·d protein to them.

Patients with GRF 5-25ml/min·1.73 m, add 0.3 g/kg·d essential amino-acid or ketoanaloge KA.
For patients with hemodialysis: provide 1.2 g/kg·d protein.

Diet for patients with Renal Failure or Renal transplantation


Kidneys filter wastes, electrolytes and fluid from blood through your urine. If kidneys fail to function, dangerous levels of fluid, wastes will accumulate in human body. There are many things can cause renal failure, such as hypertension, diabetes, toxic poisoning and infections. Therefore, supporting your kidneys with a proper diet can be one of the best and easiest treatments.
Here are some tips for those who take Kidney Transplantation or with Renal Failure.

1. Transplanted kidney function hasn’t recovered yet.

During this period, the patients should pay attention to avoid eating too much vegetable protein. The diet should be based on low-salt and low-protein. Avoid gaining weight too fast in a short time so as not to increase burden of heart and kidneys.

2. Transplanted kidneys return to normal.

Generally speaking, the patients with kidney transplantation should avoid foods and dietary habits which are bad for stabilizing condition. The patients finally can get rid of those restrictions of water-intake or weight management, thus their appetite improves significantly. Due to take glucocorticoids which improve the appetite, a great deal of patients put on weight rapidly during this period, or even hyperlipemia occurs. On this occasion, you should manage your diet and not eat too much. Healthy diet should be strongly recommended. The healthy diet should mainly includes fresh vegetables, fruits, low-fat, proper calorie and quality protein. High quality protein contains meat, chicken, eggs or fishes etc.

3. Choices of fruits and foods.

Avoid eating grapefruit and grapes, because those two fruits would increase the blood concentration. Consequently, these two fruits increase renal toxicity and excessive immunosuppression. Besides, mushrooms should not be eaten.

4. Kidney-transplant recipients who are complicated with diabetes.

Those patients should manage their sugar intake.

After kidney transplantation, the patients must continue to take medications to prevent rejection. Due to their diseases, patients who suffer from renal failure have a different diet from others. A healthy diet would have a better effect together with improving patient’s prognosis. That’s why patients are encouraged to carry on a healthy diet and proper exercise to promote kidney health.

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

How Is Lupus and Renal Failure Associated


Lupus is the abbreviation of SLE (Systemic Lupus Erythematosus). It can affect organs, joints and skin. One of its most serious complications is Renal Failure. Data collected reveals that no less than 40% of adults and 60% of children with lupus will lead to lupus nephritis in the long-run.

The disease is an autoimmune disease, meaning there’s something wrong with one’s immune system resulting in immune dysfunction. In other words, one’s antibodies (defense mechanisms) attack one’s own cells. It can be fatal and causes various complications, such as stroke or Renal Failure. When it affects one’s kidneys, (called lupus nephritis), the antibodies and antigen binds together resulting in immune complexes. Foreign immune complexes deposit on the kidneys and trigger immune reaction. Overactive immune reaction lead to the kidney damages in the end. This is how autoimmune disease occurs.

Lupus shows a tendency to be a hereditary disease, although no specific proof can prove. Here remind those who have a family history of paying more attention to the disease, but it doesn’t mean those who have no family history won’t suffer from the disease.

Hormones and immunosuppressive agents usually are used to deal with the disease. They can help prevent the Lupus Nephritis from progressing to Renal Failure. The treatments, sometimes, don’t work due to some unexplained reasons. What should we do at this time? Obviously, we don’t have time to wait because the disease would progress quickly and lead to Renal Failure or even death. Then for those don’t sensitive to hormones or current drugs, what we should do about that?

Immunotherapy will be just a perfect choice. Immunotherapy, just as its name denotes, treats the disease by dealing with one’s immune system. By adopting Immunotherapy, it corrects one’s overactive immune reaction, stops the combination of antibodies and antigens and then prevents the immune complexes from depositing on the kidneys anymore. What’s more, Immunotherapy works for clearing the immune complexes and corrects the immune system, trains it to kill the bad ones instead of one’s own healthy cells or tissue. Immunotherapy can treat Lupus and Lupus Nephritis from root cause. By treating the disease early, it can help those patients from developing to Renal Failure.

Complications of Hemodialysis in People with ESRF


When one develops to End-stage Renal Failure (ESRF), hemodialysis and kidney transplant become the few options left. Due to the inaccessible to kidney transplant, dialysis becomes the most common treatment used for sustaining people’s lives. We should definitely admit the importance of hemodialysis, but on the other hand, we should definitely understand the complications it brings.

Complications with hemodialysis in people with ESRF

1. Dialysis reaction

Generally, heat source reaction appears 50-75min after dialysis began. Patients appear with chill, fever, headache, dizziness, vomiting and nausea etc. According to these reactions above, the first dialysis should be performed in a short time. The first time lasts around 2 hours and be extended gradually. Regular dialysis can be performed after1-2weeks.

2. Dialysis disequilibrium syndrome

It can occur during or after dialysis. Main symptoms are:

Ø Headache

Ø Dysphoria

Ø Nausea

Ø Vomiting

Ø Increased blood pressure

Ø Vision blurring

Ø Cramp

Ø Coma or even death

3. Cardiovascular complications

Ø Arrhythmia

Ø Pericarditis

Ø Cardiac tamponade

Ø Cardiac failure

Ø Hypertension

Ø Cerebral hemorrhage

Ø Intradialytic hypotension

Cardiovascular diseases account for no less than 50% of the deaths for those on hemodialysis.

4. Hard water syndrome

Skin burning

Itch

Rubefaction

Excitation

5. Aeroembolism

Chest pain

Cough

Breath with difficulty

Fidget

Cyanopathy

Dottiness

6. Fever

7. virus hepatitis

Some of the side effects and complications of hemodialysis threaten ESRF patients’ life security, that’s why taking treatment is very important.

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Why Would Child with Renal Failure Develop Sexual Development


Q: My son suffers from Renal Failure. And I thought he might experience some kind of sexual development problem. Is the Renal Failure responsible for that, or just something else? If the problem does induced by Renal Failure, then is there anything that can help?

A: According to the brief introduction you gave me, it seems very likely that your kid develops sexual development. If it is caused by the Kidney Failure, then there are things we could help you.

Renal Failure is a pretty complicated disease. Many kidney diseases can lead to the occurrence of Kidney Failure. Grow-ups with the disease could be affected their sexual abilities, to say nothing of children or teenagers. We have to admit that Kidney Failure, to some extent, would lead to some kind of sex problems. However, this is not an absolute.

As for whether the disease affects child’s sexual development, well, it depends. It depends on not only the age of onset, but also other factors such as environment or something like that. The disease complicates nutritional or metabolic matters may affect hormones in kids’ body. The hormones are exactly the indispensable factors involved in children’s growth or sexual development. What’s more, medications you’ve taken, dialysis the kids received, or the chemotherapy they once took also contributes to the development.

Kids with Renal Failure are usually shorter or smaller than other children their age. In some cases, the development slows down while others may stop. Teenage girls don’t have periods, while boys experience same trouble just like your son. After knowing all these, what can we do to help?

First things first. Take your kid go run some test or exams. Before any treatments are recommended, the doctor would rather see the reports and figure out the reasons after reading the lab reports. As parents, we must fight our impulse to protect them from all those sufferings and pain. But independence, sexual identity, self-esteem along with self-worth is necessary as well as important for the kids. They need support and protect indeed; more importantly, they need to make this with your supporting.

What You Should Know About Renal Anemia


Anemia refers to a low red blood cell count. As the amount of hemoglobin is less than 12 grams, the patients may be suffering from an Anemia. Anemia occurs as a common complication with Renal Failure. Many patients learnt of their Anemia as they feel weak and fatigued.
Treatment of Renal Anemia is totally different from simple anemia. But what exactly are the differences between those two anemias?

Renal Anemia usually doesn’t suitable for blood transfusion, unless hemoglobin is lower than 50g/L, if not taking blood transfusion, it would threaten patients’ lives. This is because the red blood cells begin to die and age continuously as soon as they are transfused to patients. Dead and senescent red blood cells produce a mass of nitrogenous wastes and accumulate in human body which aggravates a heavy burden in kidneys. Therefore, the best way to treat Renal Anemia is to remedy Renal Failure.

Anemia starts in the third stage of renal disease as glomerular filtration rate is less than 60cc/min. As renal disease progresses, anemia worsens accordingly.

Main signs or symptoms may appear such as fatigue, weakness, less enthusiasm, lack of concentration, swallow face, a fall in blood pressure. People who have symptoms usually attribute those to stress or sleeping problems. In severe cases of Anemia, dizziness occurs frequently. A more subtle or earlier change can be a wide difference between systolic and diastolic blood pressure measurement.

Anemia can be detected by blood pressure test. Taking a blood test can help the doctor determine what exactly the cause of your Anemia and what kind of treatment may be suitable for your condition. Early detection and timely treatment may greatly improve patients’ life quality or even their life expectancy.

Can Pyelonephritis Cause Chronic Renal Failure


Pyelonephritis is a type of urinary tract which affects one or both kidneys. It may cause permanent kidney damage and chronic renal failure. Therefore, you should not ignore it and should have treatment immediately after its diagnosis.

Pyelonephritis is mainly due to bacterium or virus infecting the kidneys. The bacterium Escherichia coli is the common cause for this problem. The bacteria and viruses can travel from bladder to kidneys, leading to kidney infections.

In normal condition, the urine flow from the kidneys to the bladder. However, if some people have a structural defect of the urinary tract, a kind stone, or enlarged prostate, it may cause urine to flow back up, or reflux into one or both kidneys. As the urine contain bacteria and virus, this part of people are at risk of developing pyelonephritis. Also, the patients with bladder infection are more likely to develop pyelonephritis. If the infection is not controlled, it may cause progressive kidney damage and Chronic Renal Failure.

* It can cause persistent kidney inflammation that can scar the kidneys and may lead to chronic renal failure.

* Pyelonephritis may cause building up of urine in urinary tract. Consequently, the pressure in kidneys will increase significantly and compress kidney tissues and cells, leading to renal ischemia and anoxia. Then, it can cause sclerosis and necrosis of kidney tissues.

Therefore, early inspection and treatment of pyelonephritis is very important to prevent it from developing into chronic renal failure.

1. The patients usually are suggested to drink more water to flush out the virus and bacteria in the urinary tract by producing urine.

2. Antibiotics are usually prescribed to control the infection. Thus, it can prevent the virus or bacteria from traveling to other body parts in blood stream and prevent more serious kidney inflammation.

3. If pyelonephritis has caused kidney impairment, the above treatment methods are not enough to control the condition. Along with controlling the inflammation of kidneys, relative therapy should be adopted to prevent further kidney scarring and improve renal function.

Monday, February 18, 2013

Anemia in Patients with Chronic Renal Failure (CRF)


Anemia is common among people with Chronic Renal Failure (CRF), called Renal Anemia. Some people regard it as a kind of disease. However, it is a complication coming from CRF rather than an independent disease. But why would it happen?

The occurrence of Anemia mainly blames on CRF. Four reasons accounting for its happening.
One is the reduced production of erythrogenin (EPO) and poor hematopoietic function of bone marrow. Those two factors should be blamed to the damaged kidneys.

The second reason is poor appetite in patients with CRF. Poor appetite roots in nausea, vomiting or other symptoms resulting from the disease. With poor appetite, patients eat less food, which lead to less iron, protein and folic acid intake. Those things are exactly the main raw materials for blood, that’s why Anemia appears.

Thirdly, patients with CRF which means a great deal of toxins and metabolic wastes accumulating in human body, those toxins contribute to the repressive hematopoietic function of bone marrow.
Last but not the least, Chronic Renal Failure could give rise to coagulation disorder, and cause the subcutaneous, nose and digestive tract bleeding. To make things worse, frequent blood drawing for the tests or hemodialysis would aggravate the Anemia more or less.

After knowing the causes, then how to deal with it?

The most common cause of Anemia in patients with CRF other than EPO deficiency is iron deficiency. You can find the later one in red meat. One thing you need to remember is too much red meat poses extra burden to your already impaired kidneys, so you need to talk with the doctor before implementing the plan. Apart from this, taking iron supplements is also workable.

How Does Kidney Disease Attack


Vast majority of the kidney disease is some kind of immune disease. There are two major stages of kidney problems: first one is stage of inflammatory response, i.e. nephritis; the second stage is Renal Failure.

Several basic factors inducing kidney problems contain one’s emotion, diet, genetic factors, overwork and environment. Unstable emotion, unhealthy dietary habit, genetic influences, pressure from overwork causing mental stress and the influencing elements all are responsible for the occurrence of kidney disease. But I don’t mean kidney problem will probably occur. Abnormal immune system is the real culprits accounting for later nephritis. What are the results of abnormal immune system or disordered immunity? Obviously, chaotic immune system release antigens and antibodies, which form immune complexes. Under normal circumstance, those complexes can be removed out from blood by our immune system, but now it fail to function well. So those immune complexes will deposit in kidneys.

The deposited foreign matters would trigger hyperactive inflammatory response and damages intrinsic cells and normal renal structure. Consequently, proteinruia, blood in urine and occult blood occur.

If this situation fails to be well controlled, collagenous fiber of ECM forms as a result. Renal structure changes and filtering function is affected. Kidney fibrosis and hardening would develop along with decreased kidney function. Too much deposited immune complexes and proteinuria also could lead to further kidney damages. GFR decreases, creatinine elevates, anemia and high blood pressure appear subsequently. Renal Failure develops eventually.

Sunday, February 17, 2013

How to Deal with Itching Skin of Renal Failure


Patients with Renal Failure usually experience itching skin. The itchy skin is one of the most annoying symptoms occurring in people with the disease. This is mainly caused by a great deal of toxins building up in the blood and body resulting from the failed kidneys. The toxins deposit and stimulate in one’s skin triggering the itching.

Since the itching is inevitable, so how to deal with it or how to relieve it may become the most concerned questions. Today I will list some of the effective approaches to help patients ease the suffering.

1. Don’t scratch even the itch is unbearable. Scratching all the skin off their arms will easily lead to skin infections and aggravate the condition.

2. Wearing pure cotton clothes. Wash the cleaning solution all off as you wash the clothes.

3. Keep a moderate indoor temperature, and open the window to keep the air in your room fresh. By doing this, it would benefit your dry skin.

4. Drink at regular time and fixed quantity, and follow a kidney-friendly diet.

5. Don’t take shower frequently. I know most of you guys tend to take a shower whatever after you has done. Surely, it is a good living habit, but it may not be the best choice for those with Renal Failure. What’s more, avoid too hot water and too long time.

6. Last but not the least, don’t evoke the skin with any other kinds of things like soap and shower gel, to name a few.

Chronic Renal Failure Triggers Anemia

Anemia causing by chronic renal failure is called renal anemia. Evidence show that anemia boost the speed of ischemia and oxygen deficiency as well as oxidative stress resulting in glomerular and interstitial fibrosis.

When renal anemia occurs, you should take exams and check kidney function as early as possible. The root cause of renal anemia is kidney damages. If left untreated, it will significantly affect your quality of lives.

Why would chronic renal failure trigger anemia?

1. The secretion of erythrogenin decreases as renal atrophy occurs, which leads to the poor hematopoietic function of bone marrow.

2. Due to the occurrence of nausea and vomiting in patients with chronic renal failure, they have poor appetite. Under this condition, the intake of iron, folic acid and protein decline, consequently, hematopoietic raw material undersupply.

3. When the condition progresses to renal failure, hematopoietic function is inhibited.

4. Chronic renal failure causing coagulopathy together with hemodialysis and frequent blood tests aggravate anemia.

Renal anemia accompanies with a mild symptoms, people may not realize it until your condition progresses to a pretty serious stage. Symptoms and signs of renal anemia are:

Fatigue

Difficulty concentrating

Dizziness

Wide difference between systolic and diastolic blood pressure

Pale-looking

Shortness of breath

Palpitations

How to treat?

Renal anemia is caused by kidney damages, so before treating anemia, kidney disease should be remedied beforehand. Other ways to deal with the issue are:

EPO

Renal anemia is treated with genetically engineered form of EPO. It is injected under the skin 2-3 times a week.

Iron

Iron can be injected into your vein so as to circulate through your body.

Transfusion of red blood cells is another way to treat renal anemia.

All in all, control the progression of CKD is the foundation of treating renal anemia.

Saturday, February 16, 2013

How Exactly High Blood Pressure Leads To Renal Failure In the End


High blood pressure or hypertension accounts for more than 25,000 new cases of Renal Failure in United States alone. The number can be much higher till now. Hypertension obtains a high prevalence rate not just in America but all around the world; meanwhile, renal hypertension or Hypertensive Nephropathy becomes a major cause of ESRF (end-stage renal failure).

How exactly high blood pressure leads to Renal Failure in the end?

Speaking of Renal Failure or ESRF, renal hypertension should be mentioned. Data collected reveals that the Hypertensive Nephropathy brings ESRF or even death to people with this disease. But how exactly does it happen? High blood pressure is more like a disease affecting one’s blood vessels. It blocks one’s arteries and narrows the blood vessels in the whole body, of course, including the blood vessels in kidneys. Consequently, the blood flow to kidneys decreases and also occurs with anoxia. Ischemia and anoxia result in the systemic constriction of blood vessels, and then blood pressure rises accordingly.

The hypertension puts extra stress on the kidneys and damages one’s cells, tissues, renal structure and then triggers the kidney disease. The pathological changes of renal hypertension occur usually in 5-10 years, while the clinical symptoms appear after 10-15 years of suffering from the disease. High blood pressure contributes to the kidney fibrosis and sclerosis and becomes the major culprit of ESRF. What’s worse, even one with mild kidney disease, hypertension speeds up the progression of its development to the Renal Failure or ESRF.

Headache and dizzy are the signs or symptoms of elevated blood pressure, and nausea and vomiting would occur in some serious cases. By those symptoms, you can tell if you have the disease or not. Of course, signs and symptoms won’t be enough, more tests such as imaging studies and biochemical work-up is still needed. Interventional radiologists can accurately diagnose the disease.

Medical management and life-style changes can be adopted to deal with the elevated blood pressure. If one have already had Hypertensive Nephropathy, give your damaged kidneys a break is vital. How? Maybe medications focusing on controlling the blood pressure work. However, find out the underlying causes—high blood pressure means a lot to stop it from progressing to Renal Failure or ESRF.

Will Chronic Pyelonephritis Cause Chronic Renal Failure


The persistent or recurrent Chronic Pyelonephritis would lead to Chronic Renal Failure (CRF), i.e. uremia. Conversely, if CRF patients are associated with renal infections, this would aggravate the condition. Those kinds of cases commonly happen in clinic, once the renal infections are being controlled, the symptoms will be greatly relieved, so we call it an irreversible factor. The treatment for CRF complicated with renal infections is pretty tricky, reasons are:

1. Blood flow of kidneys with Chronic Renal Failure patients is pretty small, so it takes a long time for antibacterial attaining an effective concentration in kidney tissues, which would resulting in the tendency of bacteria’s drug-resistance.

2. The pathologic bacteria of Chronic Renal Failure complicated with renal infections are often caught while in hospital, that’s why the drug-resistance strains are pretty much.

3. There are plenty of contradictions when using the antibacterial. For instance, reduction of using antibacterial is needed in order to avoid systemic drug toxicity. But after the reduction, the concentration of antibiotic in kidneys can’t finish the task to killing bacteria, so the curative effects are not good.

4. There are several antibiotics which should use with caution or be forbidden, because they may have renal toxicities. Those drugs have strong renal toxicities and should be taken with caution. Azotemia would be aggravated by using the tetracycline drugs; using nitrofurantoin might cause neuritis and other toxic symptoms in renal failure, so they shouldn’t be used especially for Chronic Renal Failure patients.

5. Due to drug excretory function degenerates, the longer the treatment is, the easier the accumulation will be. Some of the patients are eager to cure the diseases by taking uninterrupted medicines. Well, it doesn’t work. Conversely, it can lead to the invasion of resistant bacteria or even causes 2 or more bacteria mixed infections, which makes the treatment more difficult.

With the appearances of unceasing new antibacterial drugs and continuous update of therapies in recent years, the clinical recovery cases of Chronic Pyelonephritis increases. According to some reports, 31-42% of bacteriuria can be eliminated after taking standard bacterial treatment in six weeks. Meanwhile, the success rate of surgery increases among patients with Chronic Pyelonehpritis which complicated with abnormality, obstruction or vesicoureteral reflux. Among those 147 cases of Chronic Pyelonephritis patients, 49 with more than 13 years medical histories did not become Chronic Renal Failure until now. In conclusion, the persistent and recurrent of Chronic Pyelonephritis patients would lead to CRF in the end. But it can be corrected if treated timely.

Friday, February 15, 2013

Kidney Fibrosis: Main Culprit for CRF or ESRF


What is kidney fibrosis?

Kidney fibrosis is the primary cause responsible for the development of various kidney diseases. It was fibrosis which leads to CRF or ESRF (End-stage Renal Failure), poses serious damages on kidneys and threatens patients’ life security.

Kidney fibrosis is characterized by the excess deposition of extracellular matrix (ECM), and its final result is glomerular sclerosis and renal tubulointerstitial fibrosis. The excess deposition of fibrous tissues gradually replaces the healthy ones, disrupts the normal renal structure resulting in the Kidney Failure.

After realizing the facts about kidney fibrosis, then what are the major incentives accounting for progression?

1. sustained hypertension

Reports have revealed that high blood pressure is the result of various kidney diseases, the other way round, it is also one vital factor involved in the kidney disease progression. Uncontrolled or poorly controlled high blood pressure is a bad sign for prognosis. What’s worse, elevated hypertension is an independent risky factor to ESRF.

2. poorly controlled proteinuria

Same as hypertension, massive proteinuria appears as not only the result of kidney disease, but also a crucial cause of kidney fibrosis. Heavy albuminuria signals patients a poor prognosis. This is especially true among the patients with primary membranous nephropathy.

3. infections

Infections are able to cause accelerated metabolism and pose extra burden on the impaired kidneys. The infection itself and bacterial endotoxin damages kidneys too. That’s why as one’s illness condition progresses all of a sudden, infection will be suspected as the first culprit.

4. Abnormal lipid metabolism

Hyperlipemia is one of the abnormal lipid metabolisms. It could speed up the glomerulosclerosis and kidney fibrosis.

Those four factors are the major incentives of the fibrosis. If you have diagnosed some kind of kidney diseases, or suffer from a sudden development of your disease condition, then you’d better pay more attention to those factors.

More Informations Email Me: kidneyfailurecn@hotmail.com

Top Seven Causes Trigger End-stage Renal Failure


End-stage Renal Failure (ESRF) is the most serious stage of Renal Failure, which cannot be fixed. When the condition develops to ESRF, it denotes that the kidneys quit working completely leading to the excess fluids, wastes and electrolytes build up in human body, one can’t live without dialysis or kidney transplant.

Why would End-stage Renal Failure occur?

There can be a variety of reasons causing ESRF, SLE (systemic lupus erythematosus), allergic purpura, hyperuricaemia and so on.

1. High blood pressure

Evidence shows that 15% of people with high blood pressure would develop to ESRF directly. According to the data from USRDS 2007 Annual Data Report, high blood pressure causes more than 25,000 new cases of kidney failure in the United States. These numbers are frightening and are expected to wildly increasing in the coming ten years.

2. Diabetes

In comparison with hypertension causing ESRF, the number doubles in people with diabetes. With over 20 million people in the United States affected and those numbers on the rise, accounting for nearly 44 percent of new cases.

3. Kidney diseases

All the chronic kidney diseases would lead to ESRF sooner or later. Among them, chronic nephritis becomes a major culprit and glomerulonephritis accounts for 55.7% of cases.

4. Urinary tract infection or obstruction

Chronic pyelonephritis accounts for 21.2% of the cases.

5. Toxic side effects of medications

Research shows that 25% of people with Renal Failure are associated with renal toxic drugs.

6. Age

17.3% elderly people suffer from various kidney diseases in China. Resident patients suffer from urinary tract diseases accounting for 3.4%-6.3% among all the cases. The urinary tract diseases have become the top eight causes of death among elderly people.

7. HIV

HIV has become an increasingly worrisome health problem worldwide, and the new cases of ESRF caused by HIV rises accordingly. Statistics shows that HIV induced ESRF accounts for 1% of ESRF cases. These numbers could surge in recent years as more and more people are infected with HIV.

More Informations Email Me: kidneyfailurecn@hotmail.com

Top 5 Causes of Acute Renal Failure


Acute Renal Failure formally called acute renal injury. Acute Renal Failure can be caused by multiple reasons. When people suffer from Acute Renal Failure, there will be lots of features in clinic. To prevent Acute Renal Failure in our daily lives, let’s start from understanding the following five common causes:

A. Shock

Various causes of shock can trigger Acute Renal Failure. The most common causes are: bleeding (hemorrhage), imbalance of water and electrolytes as well as cardiac cycle failure etc.

B. Infections

Infections of bacteria, virus and mycete can be complicated with Acute. Bacterial infection especially gram-negative infection easily incurs Acute Renal Failure. Virus infections which are prone to trigger Acute Renal Failure include viral pneumonia, cephalitis, hepatitis and epidemic hemorrhagic fever etc.

C. Extrusion

Acute Renal Failure causing by serious extrusion have an extremely complicated pathogenesis and clinical course, but also very staple in clinic.

D. Hemolysis

Incompatible blood type transfusion, old blood transfusion and mechanical hemolysis can complicate with Acute Renal Failure. The main pathogenesis is disseminated intravascular coagulation.

E. Toxins

A great quantity of toxins may trigger Acute Renal Failure, including:

1) Heavy metal compound such as mercury

2) Organic compound e.g. DDT

3) Biological poison such as snake venom

4) Renal toxic drugs, for example, antibiotics with renal toxicity.

There are several treatments toward Acute Renal Failure, such as hemodialysis, peritoneal dialysis. About 80% of pre-renal and post-renal Acute Renal Failure can recover, 40% of intrinsic Acute Renal Failure is able to recover. Accordingly, as long as you take an early treatment, certain of people with Acute Renal Failure can be treated.

Thursday, February 14, 2013

Uric Acid Nephropathy and Renal Stone Can Cause Renal Failure


Uric acid refers to the catabolite of purine nucleotide. 80% of the purine nucleotide comes from cellular metabolism, and the other 20% derives from daily diet. The uric acid produced from metabolism normally discharges out of human body. High level of uric acid building up in your body without being removed, gout can be occurred.

Renal injuries causing by uric acid can be categorized as three types: chronic uric acid nephropathy, uric acid nephrolithiasis and acute uric acid nephropathy. Different types manifest varying damages.

Symptoms of chronic uric acid nephropathy are backache, frequent urination at night, diuresis and high blood pressure etc. When taking urine test, small amount of proteinuria and blood in urine can be seen.

It is noteworthy that most of the patients with chronic uric acid nephropathy have no symptoms or signs until serious renal damages occur, ESRF (end-stage renal failure) happens in severe cases. High uric acid impairs renal function sharply leading in the occurrence of renal failure.

Patients with high uric acid usually develop gout. They are at higher risks of suffering from renal stones. The higher level your uric acid is, the higher risk the renal stone will develop. Huge renal stone triggers hydronephrosis and causing obstructive nephropathy.

Renal stone can block urinary tract and impair mucosa of urinary tract directly. Consequently, renal stone results in renal failure. That’s why once you have realized your have developed renal stone, the next thing you should do is to see your doctor immediately.

There are several causes of renal failure other than uric acid nephropathy and renal stone; others include glomerulonephritis, high blood pressure, diabetes or massive hemorrhage, dehydration and so on.

Once you have any of the symptoms and signs worry you, you’d better make an appointment with your doctor. Because plenty of causes trigger renal failure, it can be permanent if you don’t take action in the early stage. Any diseases even the small one can lead you to renal failure or ESRF in severe cases. It’s never too late to realize the seriousness of your condition.

More Informations Email Me: kidneyfailurecn@hotmail.com

ESRD: 8 Reasons Explain Why Patient Suffer from Heart Failure


Heart failure forms often in people with End-stage Renal Disease (ESRD). If ESRD patients experience fatigue and dizziness, you may have heart failure and you still know nothing about it. Why would that happen? And what are the causes of heart failure?

8 reasons explain the possible causes of heart failure in ESRD patients.

1. High blood pressure

Undoubtedly, high blood pressure contributes to heart failure or other heart disease induced by ESRD. It damages the heart health even in people without any kind of kidney disease.

2. Hardening of the arteries

This is the most frequent cause of heart failure. The disease starts with fat deposit in the arteries and then plaques is forming, which blocks the small arteries causing hardening of the arteries. People with ESRD experience a higher risk of suffering from heart failure.

Other reasons include:

3. Excessive blood volume

4. Influence of uremic toxins

5. Renal anemia

6. Imbalance of electrolytes and acidosis

7. Dialysis arteriovenous fistula

8. Atherosclerosis

Since we have known the close relationship between ESRD and heart failure, what should do to prevent the happening?

Try to lower the high blood pressure. Normal blood pressure is 130/85. As hypertension is one of the most important factors involving in the heart failure treatment, lowering the high levels of blood pressure is the right as well as effective move. Another suggestion for those with decreased kidney function and proteinuria, they may benefit from an even lower blood pressure of 125/75mmHg. Conversely, the reduced blood pressure may contribute to slow down the progression of kidney disease.

Detailed strategies include: follow a low salt diet, stay away from smoking, exercising more, decrease the amount of alcohol your drink, keep an eye open if you have a family history such as diabetes mellitus, take regular physical check, monitor your blood sugar regularly, lose weight and take medications.

More Informations Email Me: kidneyfailurecn@hotmail.com

Get the Facts about FSGS


FSGS is pretty rare and is one of the few diseases affecting glomeruli. FSGS causes scarring in the kidneys and is responsible for the decreased kidney function and then the Renal Failure.

No single causes account for FSGS. Sometimes it can be caused by gene, while in some cases, HIV virus is responsible for the disease. Additionally, some kidney diseases lead to the scarring and then result in the progression of medical condition.

People of any ages and any races can be the candidate of FSGS. One may wonder if the parents get the disease, will their children inherit? More commonly, FSGS is not a genetic kidney disease and won’t pass down to the children. In some cases, however, the disease runs in families. Yet, no good reasons can be unexplained.

Due to FSGS is the most common cause of Nephrotic Syndrome, its signs and symptoms report as heavy proteinuria and swelling etc. Massive albuminuria impairs the charge barrier significantly. Meanwhile, it accelerates the sclerosis of glomeruli and contributes to the worsening of one’s medical condition. No effective treatments are available for patients with Focal Segmental Glomerulosclerosis nowadays. Most commonly, the sufferers will be treated with hormones and blood pressure drugs. Others may respond well to some medications used for suppressing immune system. Those patients’ disease can be treated with routine therapies aforementioned. But for some who do not respond to those therapies, well, they are at a high risk of suffering from Renal Failure in the end. Due to the aggressive progression of FSGS, I strongly suggest those who have no response or little response to the routine therapies to seek further treatments to deal with the problem. Otherwise, it can be just a few years or months for the disease to progress to Chronic Renal Failure (CRF) or End-stage Renal Failure (ESRF). Dialysis and kidney transplant will be inevitable then.

More Informations Email Me:kidneyfailurecn@hotmail.com

Thursday, February 7, 2013

Diagnosis of Acute Renal Failure (ARF)


Diagnosis of Acute Renal Failure

1. Inquire the family history and make a careful physical inspection

2. Check urine and urine output as follows:

Urine output per hour

Physical property of urine

Urine specific gravity or urine osmotic pressure

Routine Urine

3. Routine blood test

Blood routine test

Acidophilic cells increase significantly which prompts the possibilities of acute interstitial nephritis.

Blood urea nitrogen and creatinine

Creatinine and urea nitrogen rise progressively, daily blood urea nitrogen increases 3.6--7.1mmol/L while creatinine 44.2~88.4μmol/L.

Measurement of serum electrolytes, pH or plasma [HCO3]

Precautions

Notice high levels dangerous factors.

High levels dangerous factors may include severe trauma, major surgery, systemic infection, durative hypotension or renal toxicity substance.

ARF can be avoided through correcting imbalance of water, electrolytes and acid-base positively; taking anti-shock treatment properly and timely. Those measures above could help avoiding the effective hypovolemia insufficiency, relieving renal vasoconstriction.

For those who have severe crush injury in soft tissues or mistaken blood transfusion. Primary diseases should be remedied first; meanwhile, application of certain drugs can prevent obstruction of renal tubules by hemoglobin and muscle hemoglobin or damage of epithelial cells in renal tubules.

We should dilate blood volume before operation which would influence kidneys’ blood flow. Medications should be used during or after the surgery to protect renal function. Make oliguric ARF switch to non-oliguric ARF. Dopamine could dilate blood vessels which would increase the glomerular filtration rate and renal plasma flow.

When oliguria appears, we should use dehydration test, which can not only identify prerenal ARF or renal ARF, but also precaution prerenal ARF develop to renal ARF.


What’s The Point of Detecting Microalbuminuria (MALB)


Urine and blood check-up are the two major approaches help diagnose Kidney Disease. But frequently-used indexes such as routine urine and serum creatinine, more often than that, report abnormalities of your kidney only after the medical condition has become pretty serious. However, microalbuminuria rises even at the very first stage of some Kidney Disease. That’s why detecting the MALB helps a lot.

What is microalbuminuria?

Healthy people excrete little protein in the urine, and the main component is albumin. MALB describes a medical condition that your albumin excretion is higher than a normal level (30-300mg). It can be measured by a single urine specimen or 24-hour collection, but routine urine analysis doesn’t detect MALB.

MALB is an important index and used to diagnose many Kidney Diseases. It is especially valuable in the diagnosis for those with Kidney Disease induced by Diabetes or high blood pressure. Microalbuminuria signals the early renal damages and suggests you to get treatment timely. Once the MALB progresses to clinical proteinuria, (meaning the protein in urine can be detected by routine urine analysis), then the protein increases and even interfere with various treatments, the disease will progress anyway. A long-term and heavy proteinuria damages your kidneys too, and also becomes an accomplice contributing to the progressive decreased kidney function. In people with high blood pressure or Diabetes, the microalbuminuria leaks from the urine signaling the patients’ whole small blood vessels are damaged already. Those patients easily develop cardiovascular disease.

All in all, routine urine analysis fails to detect the Kidney Disease in early stage, but microalbuminuria can. Therefore, I strongly suggest those with hypertension, Diabetes and obesity take regular check-ups, and more importantly, receive MALB from time to time.

5 ways to help protect Renal Failure patients’ remaining kidney function


1. Treat primary disease induced Renal Failure

Primary disease, as its name denotes, is the causes of Renal Failure. By treating the primary disease, one can slow down the progression of Renal Failure. However, different kidney diseases have its own progression and speed, so different therapies should be adopted. Diabetic nephropathy, for example, obtains a quick progression, but with proper insulin treatment, the remaining kidney function as well as its progression can be significantly protected and decelerated. Lupus nephritis, on the other hand, the primary disease--lupus should be treated even if the illness condition develops to ESRD (End-stage Renal Disease). Statistics collected reports that it stands a possibility that one’s kidney function can be regained and restored after receiving plasma exchange or hormonotherapy.

2. Keep high blood pressure in check

High blood pressure threatens one’s life security, and acts as an independent influencing factor in the progression of Renal Failure. It is especially true for those with retention of fluid and sodium. Choosing a fewest nphrotoxic drugs and helps too.

3. Prevent the low blood pressure on dialysis

Low blood pressure probably occurs when one taking dialysis. This is because the speedy water clearance. Low blood pressure may induce the further ischemia of kidneys and thus aggravate the kidney impairment.

4. Choose a fine dialysis membrane

Get yourself a fine dialysis membrane to reduce the activity of alexin, lower the combination of inflammatory mediator and cytokine. Those moves are beneficial to protect the remaining kidney function and reduce the complications coming from dialysis.

5. Find yourself a right dialysis or treatment plan

If you can get yourself a perfect treatment, then there’s no need to receive dialysis at all. But if you fail, then choose yourself a best dialysis plan.

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Lupus and Lupus Nephritis: Causes and Treatments


Lupus or SLE (Systemic Lupus Erythemotosus) is a kind of chronic inflammatory disease. To be more specific, the disease is an immune disease caused by one’s own immune system attacking one’s own systems or organs. It affects multiple organs such as skin, nervous system, joint, lungs or heart. Of course, it attacks kidneys causing Lupus Nephritis, also known as lupus Kidney Disease by most people.

How lupus happens?

Healthy immune system produces antibodies to fight against foreign matters such as virus, bacteria or other infections so as to keep people healthy. However, people with lupus often have an abnormal immune system, meaning the antibodies can’t tell foreign substances from one’s own healthy cells, tissues and organs. Consequently, those antibodies attack its own body parts resulting in the occurrence of SLE.

About 1 in 3 people with lupus will suffer from Kidney Disease called Lupus Nephritis. In cases of lupus, antibodies couldn’t fight against antigens forming immune complexes. Those immune complexes easily deposited in kidneys since kidneys have binding epitope which is the perfect place for immune complex. Once the foreign matters deposit in kidneys, inflammatory reaction develops spontaneously to clear them out. Those complexes are hardly to be removed because they not only travel through the blood stream, but also lodge in kidneys. The inflammatory response won’t stop as long as those complexes lingering here. Overactive reaction impairs healthy cells, tissues and organs and account for Lupus Nephritis.

How to treat Lupus Nephritis?

People with lupus Kidney Disease often feel nothing different, since they don’t even have a clue that the SLE affected their kidneys. However, kidney damage can be a spell of mortality. So it is needed to be treated immediately. To those with mild Kidney Disease, lifestyle modification is necessary. Paying extra attention to the diet and staying away from salty foods is vital to stop the progression of Lupus Nephritis. Visiting doctor from time to time helps too. Renal biopsy may help diagnose Lupus Nephritis and then contributes to the prognosis. Taking control of blood pressure could slow down the progression too. Immunosuppressants are often prescribed when the Lupus Nephritis attacks seriously.

Our treatments are proven to be more effective than the immunosuppressants and other therapies, which is plasma exchange. It works for Lupus Nephritis patients with more noticeable therapeutic effects. More importantly, Lupus kidney disease and Lupus will be treated together because lupus is the primary cause as well as root cause. As long as the primary disease is corrected, the inflammatory reaction is stopped and further renal damage can be suppressed accordingly.

Diabetic Nephropathy: Causes and Symptoms


Why Diabetic Nephropathy attacks?

DN occurs as a result of Diabetes Mellitus. The primary disease is caused by excessive amount of glucose (also known as blood sugar), which leads to the increased internal pressure of glomerular capillary and thus urges the glomeruli to work much harder than before. A long-term overload results in the damages of glomeruli and contributes to glomerulosclerosis in the end. Data collected reveal that the GFR (Glomerular filtration rate) increases by 20%-40% in people with Diabetes, meaning Diabetes Mellitus is closely associated with glomerulosclerosis and later malfunctioned kidneys.

Five stages are divided of Diabetic Nephropathy, but the patients won’t feel something until the disease progresses to stage 3. Some may go to see the doctor but some may not. Stage 3 is the high-risk period for Diabetics and requires immediate treatments. Early symptoms could help tell the disease.

Swelling around eyelid or face occurs especially in the morning and probably disappears in the afternoon. Puffiness aggravates after overwork, but relieves after having a rest. Swelling becomes an early as well as common symptom in people with either DN or other kidney diseases. a persistent swelling definitely needs your serious attention and timely treatments.

Elevated blood pressure occurs commonly in people with DN or Diabetes. Headache, dizziness, blurred vision and tinnitus develops. Some people, however, live with hypertension for a long time but with no discomforts. Therefore, measuring the blood pressure means a lot.

Back pain tortures them.

Drastically decreased or increased urine production or bubble urine appears. Frequent urination at night can be the most possible symptom of diabetic kidney disease.

Weakness, poor appetite or pale face with unexplained reason

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Salmon for Those with Kidney Disease


Salmon is as the most common and also tasty food throughout the world. It earns its reputation as a healthy support food based on its omega-3 fatty acid content. However, some people may wonder that whether they are allowed to consume the fish if they have Kidney Disease. Well, if you are looking for this, then this article may be the right one.

As is well-known that people with Kidney Disease have to keep an eye open of what they eat. Following a kidney-friendly diet is extremely important to them. The major principles are taking foods in low phosphorus, low fat, low potassium, low sodium, low protein and high vitamin. Salmon or other meat may be high in protein, however, if you don’t exceed the upper limit of daily protein intake, then consuming this delicious dish have no need to make a fuss.

What are the benefits?

Firstly, Salmon is a good source of omega-3 fatty acids, which can help reduce the inflammation and also prevent the occurrence of kidney stones.

Secondly, it may be the major sources of high quality protein. As long as we don’t consume too much, then it is okay. Thirdly, the red and processed meats are high in saturated fat which is bad for one’s health. Conversely, this fish is a good alternative protein sources which is generally beneficial to one’s cardiovascular system. Thus, lower the occurrence of high blood pressure and reduce the possible complications coming from the Kidney Disease.

Fourthly, it is delicious! Unlike other diet we need to follow, salmon is much more tasty and enjoyable.

ONLINE DOCTOR